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A Few Dates And I Would've Married Her
Vingette Two - Zack Allan a day or so after Vingette One, set before Phoenix Ascendant

She was sleeping in a bed less than five feet away from him.

His bed, no less.

If he could take his eyes away from her for a few minutes he could probably tell you just how many times he'd wished for this all those years ago. He could probably just give you the number off the top of his head. He was like that. Precise. He had to be to have the job he did. It was all about precision.

But he couldn't at the moment.

She was, after all, sleeping in a bed less than five feet away from him.

He wasn't sleeping with her. He wasn't in the bed with her even. He was sitting on a chair, in his uniform, trying to make himself focus on the fact he needed to go make up a bed on the couch for himself, except it wasn't working so far either. The distrction of her in his bed, curled beneath his blankets, made it hard to concentrate on much else at the second.

In sleep, she seems relaxed, her entire face free of those silent worries perhaps she didn't even realize she carried. Hair curled over her cheek and fell off her face on the edge of her chin, coming to a rest at her neck. One of her hands had curled a handful of blanket into it, and her other under one of his pillows holding it close to her even under her head.

Her eyelids flickered now and then, but there was no sign she would wake anytime soon. After all she had fallen asleep sitting up on the couch in the beginning of all this. Well, not the very beginning. It had all begun days ago. When he looked up one day to see her standing there, like every day between then and now had just vanished like three seconds, and it had never happened.

Except it had. She had walked out of his life. Not that he'd ever specifically been in her life, but he'd wanted to. He wanted to be in her life so much it hurt. She'd never seen him though. Not after the first few months they'd known each other. He was someone she trusted, but didn't need. Just 'a good friend'. Definetly, just a good friend. Especially after that conversation in the tube.

That hurt, too, and felt uncomfortable just to feel, because she might be able to tell. She was an incredibly strong telepath, stronger than any other known alive.

After the way she'd been so quiet when he breached the subject of more than friends that one time, he never brought it up again. After she fell in love with someone else, he tried to push everything he felt away. After taking her into custoday, after she'd left pretty much hating the entire place, he'd tried to place everything involving her in a little box and tuck it away somewhere to forget.

Five days ago, he would have told you it worked. That Lyta Alexander was just a friend he'd know years and years ago. Now, he was watching her sleep, feeling that familiar ache inside his chest, trying to make sense of how this beautiful angel on his pillow could make him feel like a first year lieutenant all over again without even looking at him.

Shaking himself out of a daze he stood up and rubbed his face with his hands. It was an invasion of her privacy to be sitting here staring at her like she was specimen under glass. Grabbing a pair of light sleep clothes he headed for the bathroom. Closing the door behind him, he ran himself a shower, testing the water with his hand. Walking back to the mirror, he looked at himself in the mirror.

Not yet past his prime, not yet over the hill, not buried into the ground under his work, not sure who'd murdered the three men in brown sector, not sure how the ambassador's celebration tomorrow might go and not even sure of the stations safety due to the girl in his bedroom. Station safety. That was his job.

And now.....now, she was in his bed.

It always came down to those two before she left hadn't it? Her or the job? Because neither of them seemed to work together ever. She was dangerous. How dangerous he hadn't the vaguest clue, but dangerous. Very dangerous. Undressing, he tried to run through his mind all that had been gathered before her leaving.

She had telepathy. She had telekensis. She could control large groups without the slightest hint of exhaustion. She could break anything. She was only kept by her own willingness to be kept during the last days when they'd arrested her. There had been no feasible way of stopping her should it come to that, except Sheridan putting a gun to her head and truthfully saying he would kill her.

She could still be that dangerous. It was his job to know whether she was or not. His job.

Stepping into the shower he let the run down his body as he dismissed the thoughts like a room full of people. It was hot and the first touch made the rest of his skin prickle, causing a shiver down his spine. The heat and the building steam pouring into the small space he put his hands on the wall in front of him, his head hung slightly, the spray of the shower directly on his head and down his body from there.

Everything he pushed away pushed back in on itself, leaving him with the picture of her sleeping less than a full room away. He shook his head, opening his eyes and started to soap up his body. He needed some sleep he told himself, it'd been a long night. He had truly, too.

They'd agreed on pizza, after her slight discomfort a few days ago during lunch. Here; early evening. He'd been late by three hours dealing with another murder in brown. He had to solve the problem in the brown sector before anyone else died. He'd had to apologize forever and explain. They'd ended up eating pizza in the main room while watching movies, an extra to make up for the time mess up.

She'd fallen asleep holding a pillow during the second one. He couldn't wake her with the first shake, so he moved to his bed and let her sleep.

Letting the soap wash away off his body and out of his hair, he turned off the shower, he shook his head. He didn't know what he was doing. He said it was the job, that he needed to get close and figure out what she was doing here, whether she was a threat. In the getting close, he seemed to loose track of it every time. He seemed to forget there was another world he had to return to.

Stepping out, he received another chill all over his body, causing it to prickle, this time from cool air on warmed, wet skin. Taking a towel he dried himself off and shuffled into his sleeping clothes. He brushed his teeth, his hair, and turned back to the closed door. He placed a hand on the door for a moment.

He was going to walk through that room and go to bed. He wasn't going to stop there and stand and watch her sleep. He wouldn't stop to remark how time seemed to have brought him back to this sudden impass. He wouldn't stop to look at her and think she was so beautiful it hurt. He was going to walk straight through that room and go make up the couch as a bed for the night.

Taking a deep breath he opened the door and stepped out into the room. Then he looked at the bed, and felt a crushing weight on his chest even as he let in a surprised breath.

It was empty.

"Lyta?"

He looked across the room, and walked to the doorway, his voice echoing only in his ears with a roaring silence. The main room was empty too. He felt like the great weight shifted from his chest to the pit of his stomach. He walked back to his room, running a hand over the damp hair and shaking his head as it settled on his neck.

What a night. A long night.

"Lights. Dim."

He looked around the room for a moment before shuffling out once more to put up the box the pizza had come in. He turned off the lights in that room and wondered where Lyta had gone off to just then. It was such different ends of the spectrum. Now that she wasn't here, the pain inside his chest missed here being her. In the room, in his bed, laughing, talking.

Walking back into his room he noticed the bed was made and a folded piece of paper was sitting on the pillow, half open, where Lyta had been sleeping. He walked over and picked it up. Opening he read it once over, twice.

Sorry about falling asleep.
I never meant to put you out.

Lyta

He laughed faintly and it left him with a smile, as he called out for the lights to go off. Leave it to her, this would-be dangerous person on that station, to be worried her presence might be caused for an inconvience. He went off to sleep thinking that he was right all those years ago, if he'd dated her he would've married her, and smelling the scent of her just faintly enough on his pillow.

On to Phoenix Ascendant: From The Ashes

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